3.2 Participating Organizations

Technical elements of the Telerobotics Program are conducted at NASA field centers, universities, industry sites, and private research centers. As previously noted, managerial activities for the program are conducted by internal and external NASA committees and working groups. The membership of the Telerobotics Intercenter Working Group is composed of designated representatives of selected participating organizations. These organizations are listed below:

Managerial Participants:

OSAT The Office of Space Access and Technology is responsible for the overall organization and evolution of the NASA space research and advanced technology programs, and is the NASA organizational element in which the Telerobotics Program exists.

TRIWG The Telerobotics Intercenter Working Group consists of one representative from each participating NASA field center, and meets four times a year to provide technical advice to the Telerobotics Program Manager. The TRIWG performs detailed technical reviews of the ongoing technology and application tasks, and provides feedback to the responsible individuals for that task.

Technical Participants:

ARC The NASA Ames Research Center, within the Telerobotics Program, investigates and demonstrates computational architectures for NASA telerobotics activities. A primary focus is the development and application of telepresence and virtual reality techniques for operator interfaces to complex mechanisms. In addition to the development of these techniques, scientific field trials of prototype operator interfaces have been conducted to demonstrate their use in near-term NASA missions.

Sponsored organizations:

Stanford University

JSC Efforts at the Johnson Space Center are focussed on the development of advanced teleoperations technology and applying that technology to the Space Shuttle Remote Manipulator System and ISSA attached manipulators, as well as developing other robotic applications for use in low Earth orbit.

Sponsored organizations:

Lockheed Engineering and Science

University of Texas at Austin

JPL The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is the lead center for the Telerobotics Program, and is responsible for the fundamental research and technology development efforts of the program. JPL has responsibilities in each of the technology development areas of the program, including planetary rovers, robotics, supervisory control, teleoperations, and terrestrial robotics, as well as being responsible for coordinating with the TRIWG on the timely development of the advanced telerobotics technologies and applications demonstrations undertaken by the program participants.

Sponsored organizations:

University of Southern California

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

KSC Telerobotics program elements at the Kennedy Space Center engage in the application of telerobotics technology to ground-based servicing, processing, and launch of spacecraft and payloads.

Sponsored organizations:

Carnegie Mellon University

CMU The Telerobotics Program sponsors research grants at Carnegie-Mellon University which conducts research in mobile robotics and the application of these systems to planetary surface operations. The CMU program develops and implements prototype autonomous robots which are capable of navigating through rugged, uncertain terrains in extreme environments, through the utilization of innovative locomotion architectures, robust robotic perception systems, advanced planning technologies, and efficient systems-level engineering. The products of this activity are field tested in environments as varied as abandoned slag piles, coal mines, and polar volcanoes.

UMd The Telerobotics Program sponsors research at the University of Maryland in the application of telerobotics systems to space operations. The research examines the efficiency deltas imparted by the use of telerobots in stand-alone applications, in tasks designed for EVA astronauts, and tasks performed in conjunction with EVA astronaut capabilities. This space systems research is conducted in neutral buoyancy environments to maximize the similarity to actual space operations.